“A task force says electing Michigan Supreme Court justices should not be as partisan, or as much about money, as other political offices.

“But according to one watchdog group, last year the Michigan Supreme Court campaign was the most expensive, most secretive judicial election in America. Several recommendations to get some of the politics and secret money out of the Supreme Court elections were ignored by the legislature last year.

“It’s coming up on a year since the Judicial Selection Task Force issued a report recommending changes to how we elect Michigan Supreme Court justices. Since then we elected three to the bench.

“Although the candidates ran on the non-partisan section of the ballot, politics was involved from the beginning.”

Much of the money, reports Graham, doesn’t come from the candidates.

“[T]hree out of four dollars spent to get the candidates elected was not spent by the candidates. It was spent by outside groups on so-called ‘issue ads.’ And none of that money has to be reported to elections officials. The only way [Rich] Robinson [who heads the MCFN] knows about the money is that he went door-to-door to TV stations to see how much they spent and who bought ads like these.”

Graham concludes that there’s not much hope for legislative action.

Because “Republicans hold the majority of the Supreme Court, the Republican majority in the legislature might not see a reason to consider a lot of changes anytime soon.”